The Sunday Poem: Light in the form of a hare by Matt Howard

Still bristling in every part, this body

slumped on its side just minutes before,

gradients about the fur, at the field-edge

matting there in this steady rain

in the chlorophyll of winter cover crop –

light through these forms, a drench sending, receiving,

tawny now in thin skin of loped back ears,

there, buffed about the muzzle, gleaming in beads,

rain dropletting off

whiskers, the eye, the pupil fully

dilated, light and all clamour for it

there in that amber ring of the iris, light

in its last relax, last charge into the eye,

its nerve, the tricksy hare-mind thumping

a hunger of light for light, bottomless

on the dead eye sclera, a convex mirror,

a small black portal reflecting

this seemingly endless bounding,

such strength running

now here now here now here

Matt Howard is an environmentalist and prize-winning poet. He worked in various roles for the RSPB for more than a decade and now works at the University of Leeds. His latest collection, Broadlands, is published by Bloodaxe.

Illustration by Chris Riddell